


It Was Everything

by MadameFluffnStuff



Series: Aang is a ~little shit~ [7]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aang is a ~little shit~, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Western, Banter, Bending (Avatar), Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Katara is best healer, NaNoWriMo 2020, Rivals to Lovers, an exercise in dialogue, because im not writing minors lmao, because it always is, days 3 and 4, it's a combo of those 3 in the AU idk what to call it, no beta we die like men, sweeties gonna sweet, sweeties who sass together last together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27393724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameFluffnStuff/pseuds/MadameFluffnStuff
Summary: If Katara downed a shot every time the windwielder with the giant flying fluffythingcrossed her path, she would be too drunk to wield water ever again.
Relationships: Aang & Katara (Avatar), Aang/Katara (Avatar)
Series: Aang is a ~little shit~ [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1917649
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	It Was Everything

**Author's Note:**

> A thousand thanks to @penguinsledder for referring the idea of a fluffy-Kataang-WildWest!AU to me! It was just what I needed for NaNoWriMo days 3 and 4 (feat. littleshit!Aang:D)

“ _ There _ you are,” Katara said. She breathed properly for the first time in an hour and dissipated her waterlasso; a wave of her hands wielded her liquid ammo back into the waterskins holstered at her hips. “Sweet Tui and La, what the  _ hell _ do you think you’re doing so far from camp?”

The windwielder— _ Aang _ , the young man said his name was the last time they ‘met’—sat on the canyon clay in front of the giant  _ thing _ he called a pet. Katara was more than glad she sold her mare for rations in the previous town over. Even she had trouble standing near the beast Aang coddled like a turtleduck.

Katara’s charge turned so fast that she thought he would tear the bandages wrapped around his abdomen and chest. “Hiya, Kya!” He flailed his free arm in a passionate wave, but he immediately regretted it when the movement jostled him. He whimpered like a kicked dog and cradled the sling supporting his once dislocated shoulder.

His voice echoed around the canyon. Katara was behind him in the next second. “ _ Shhh! _ ” She smacked her hand over his mouth before he alerted their location to every bounty hunter from there to the desert just beyond the lip of their refuge. “Are you  _ crazy _ ?!” Katara hissed.

Aang’s eyes put puppies to shame. “S’morry…,” he mumbled behind her hand. 

Katara took a healthy stride away from the idiot and the idiot’s giant furry flying thing. Appa hadn’t moved from his position laying on his side. Earlier, Katara had barely been able to get him to move one of his paws so she could access the burns along his stomach. The creature was panting with burn fever, that much was certain, but he would recover.

The windwielder smiled at her. Katara flicked his stupid arrow.

“Ow…”

“Don’t you  _ ever _ run off like that again.”

“Aw, were you worried about me? I’m touched. I knew you cared.”

She flicked him again, and she considered flicking him a third time when he cradled his ‘wound’ like it had put him on his deathbed. “You’ll be smacked if you don’t cut the attitude. Don’t run off like that again. I can’t have you getting killed doing something stupid. I only get paid if you’re breathing.”

Aang laughed, and the shine of his bratty smile was bright enough to lighten the night and the shadows around them. “I didn’t run off. I was just seeing how Appa was holding up. You’re an awesome healer, Kya.”

Katara had never blushed, let alone  _ stuttered _ , from a compliment before. “H-Hardly. I just know enough to get by.”

“It’s true, though! You're a really talented waterwielder—the best I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m the  _ only _ waterwielder you’ve ever seen.”

“Well, yeah, but you’re still really good.” 

“Thanks. I guess.”

The silence was long and awkward. Aang glanced between her and Appa several times. His face scrunched up a bit. He was thinking. Katara hated when he did that.

“You can pet him, y’know. Appa doesn’t bite.”

Katara regarded the ten-ton behemoth. “Pretty damn big teeth for something that doesn’t bite,” she said. Aang ignored this. Of course, he did. The idiot with a handsome smile scooted over and patted the spot of clay next to him. Katara rolled her eyes. “And  _ how _ , exactly, can I be sure he isn’t going to attack me?”

“He has no reason to.”

“He has  _ every _ reason to.”

“He has every reason  _ not _ to. You saved his life.”

“All I did was heal him of a few burns. I hardly call that saving his life.”

Aang’s smile faltered. He scratched the bandage wrapped around his torso and adjusted the armsling Katara had mended for him out of his sash. “You helped him when nobody else would,” he mumbled. His smile was back in the next second, and he patted the ground again. “Here. If it makes you feel any better, I promise I’ll protect you if Appa tries anything. Windwielder’s honor.”

Katara crossed her arms and didn’t answer. Aang, again, patted the spot next to him. 

_...Why me? _

Groaning, Katara ignored the urge to bang her head against a rock and sat. Slowly. Aang felt strangely warm beside her, but, then again, windwielders were known for warming themselves with nothing more than their breathing. Katara hesitated before cautiously combing the barest points of her fingers into the thick fur pooling down the beast’s head.

“Here,” Aang said. His grip on her hand was gentle and the way he guided her hand was even gentler. Their sides brushed. The personal air current he cloaked himself in wound around Katara, too, “he likes cheek scratches.” It was awfully close to Appa’s mouth, but Katara followed Aang’s instruction. Appa’s eyes closed, and the sound he made shook Katara’s insides while Aang smiled all the wider. “See? He trusts you.”

“Trusts me?” Katana huffed dismissively and almost shook her head. “He’s naive as all hell if he trusts me.”

“Why? You helped him. Of course, he trusts you.”

“He doesn’t know who I am. I could be a serial killer for all he knows. He doesn’t know the first thing about me.”

“Well, yeah, but…” Aang’s voice trailed off, and his pets on Appa’s nose paused before restarting slower than before. “You don’t know him, either, and you helped him anyway.”

“Trust is a luxury he can’t afford with the Burn Brothers after the two of you. The devil princess herself takes people out only after she gains their confidence. She enjoys it.” Katara glanced at him in her periphery. “Or have you forgotten already?”

Aang was quiet for a long second. “...He knows you won’t hurt him.”

“Does he?” Katara glanced at Aang again. Her attention lingered on his sling and the healing burn on his cheek before going back to the feverish beast. “He’s not exactly in a position to defend himself as far as I’m concerned.”

“You’ve never hurt him.”

“So what?”

“Everyone else hurts him. Or, at the very least, they try to.” 

Katara hesitated. “That means nothing.”

Aang shrugged. “Could mean something. He’s the last of his kind as far as he knows. He hasn’t seen another since he was little. He can’t even remember them. That’s probably a good thing, though. The others were hunted down a long time ago.” His eyes were soft and grey like a wolf’s pelt, and Katara couldn’t look away from them. “You’re the first person he’s met who hasn’t tried to kill or capture him.”

“That doesn’t mean I won’t.”

“He knows you won’t.”

“Oh? And how does he know that?”

“He has a feeling. No one’s ever helped him. Especially when he was hurt.”

Katara tore her attention back to Appa’s cheek-scratches and whispered what she had meant to only think. “I don’t turn my back on people who need me.”

She heard Aang’s smile. “He knows.”

“I didn’t realize he knew my life’s story.”

“He doesn’t need to. He knows you’re good.”

Katara arched her brow and shot him a skeptical look. Aang caught it with a grin. “Because he has a feeling?”

“Something like that.”

“Then he’s naive  _ and _ a fool. One good deed doesn’t change anything.”

Aang laughed. It was a really nice sound. It plunged Katara into something that felt like jelly and warmed her like a strong drink.

Appa licked her hand.

“Oh,  _ gross _ !”

“Sorry about that.” Aang’s smile said he wasn’t sorry in the least, but Katara couldn’t bring herself to care. His laugh kept her spellbound even as she wielded the slobber off and away from her with a flick of her wrist and a touch of waterwielding. “It’s his way of saying thanks. Kisses are how he shows affection. I told you he likes—”

Aang bent over with a sharp gasp of pain. Katara cursed. She was on her knees behind him in an instant, assessing the gaping scar breaking the line of his tattoos. 

The scar was old, but the torn highways of chi and life-energy just beneath the surface were raw and pulsing. Katara handed Aang a stick and told him to sit still. She wielded water to her palms and concentrated on the glow of power as she moved her hands along the center of his muscled back. She silently commended him for keeping his silence even when the stick between his teeth snapped. She tightened the stitches in his chi that she had sutured months ago, and she bundled and sheathed the frayed ends of energy torn apart by the desperation of a wielder forced to fight when they barely had any life left in them. 

The months since she last saw him had not treated him kindly.

“That should hold you over for now,” Katara said. She corked her waterskins just as she reclaimed her seat at his side. His stick was gone, but his eyes were closed in a pain that Katara couldn’t imagine. “You shouldn’t have another healing session until morning. Your body can only take so much manipulation at one time.”

Aang was sweaty but smiling when he cracked his eyes open. “Thanks,” he mumbled. He was slow to sit straight again. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“I can’t exactly stop you.”

“What’s your real name?”

Katara paused. Her heart dropped in the way it always did when a highwayman squinted at her resemblance to a wanted poster, but something in Aang’s tone made it bounce back to where it was supposed to be in her chest. “My name is Kya.”

Aang grinned. The sincerity in his eyes was as genuine as the reassurance hidden behind his words. “No, it’s not. You say  _ Kya _ like the name is a part of you, but it's not your own.”

Katara looked at him, and, for some reason, it felt like she was seeing him for the first time. “...Katara. My name is Katara.”

“Katara.” Aang’s smile reached his eyes, and he offered the hand of his non-slinged arm. “Well, it’s nice to officially meet you, Katara. My name’s Aang, but you knew that already.”

Katara gave his hand a wary glance before shaking it. “Likewise.”

They shook hands for a second longer than what was normal, and Aang’s face was red bordering on crimson when he finally let her go. His eyes suddenly found the clay very interesting, and he fiddled with a loose string on his pants. 

Katara couldn’t believe it. The chatterbox was at a loss for words.

“Oh, um…I ugh...I have something for you.” Aang dug into his pocket. “It’s nothing, really. Just a little trinket of sorts.”

Katara snatched it as soon as she saw it. “My mother’s necklace!” It was there. It was really,  _ really _ there, in her hands again—where it  _ belonged _ . “How did—How did you  _ get _ this?”

Aang’s smile was shy, and he fiddled even more with the string on his pants. “I had a long talk with that buddy of yours from the coast. The pawnbroker had a change of heart. He asked me to make sure I got it to you.”

Katara’s cheeks grew hot. She looked away from him before her face started burning. She hastily put on her mother’s necklace before busying her hands with smoothing imaginary wrinkles in her vest. “Well...that was silly of him. And stupid.” It took her a few tries, but she managed to look at Aang again. “...But also very sweet. Kindness is hard to come by these days.”

“That’s what friends are for, right?”

Katara’s heart fell upwards this time, and it didn’t feel like it was going to come down anytime soon. “O-One sweet gesture doesn’t mean he and I are friends. He doesn’t know me any more than Appa does.”

“Oh, I—I mean, he knows, I’m sure.” Aang pawed the ground. When did he turn to face her? He was so close that Katara could hear his heart racing. Or was that hers? “But...But he might be hoping that it could mean something...maybe.”

Katara thought about it. “It might.”

Aang perked up so fast that even the wind stirred around them. “Oh?”

“It  _ might _ ,” Katara reiterated. She turned the inch or so needed to face him properly, too. She had to look up at him even when they were sitting, but it wasn’t by as large of a margin as when they were standing. Her voice refused to speak above a whisper. “A sweet gesture is just a sweet gesture until he makes it mean something.”

“Maybe he meant it as a thank you.”

“That’s not how he says thank you.”

“How do you know?”

“I have a feeling.”

Aang stared at her, and Katara tried her hardest not to laugh as she watched his mind digest the meaning of her words. His next smile outshone even the full moon. 

Aang shifted his weight and opened and closed his one free hand like he was excited and itching to do something. “I never did thank you before. Did I?”

Before—? Oh, right. 

“You don’t need to.”

“I want to,” Aang quietly said. He was closer, now. His face consumed all Katara could see, and she swore she felt the breath from his words. “I didn’t just get hurt before. I know I didn’t. I was gone...but you brought me back.”

Katara found herself closer, too. “...I don’t know what I did.” 

The wind, excited, blew a stray whirlwind like a giggle escaping someone trying not to laugh. Aang tucked a lock of loose hair behind her ear. His palm was as warm as the rest of him, and it took its time sliding down her cheek and the curve of her jaw until it cradled her face. “You saved me,” he said.

Katara turned—just enough—to brush her nose to his. “It was nothing.”

She felt his smile against the corner of her mouth, and she felt his laugh, warm and rich, melting into the deepest parts of her. Katara’s heart was in the stratosphere and beating like the thundering of a thousand horses galloping. 

He kissed her cheek. “It was everything.”

Katara turned and caught the  _ thank you _ he was teasing her with. The cheeky smile that greeted her was  _ more  _ than everything, and the kiss he led her into redefined the word.

**Author's Note:**

> Tried to have a play on words for ‘gunslinger’ lol  
> This fic is light on the worldbuilding I built into the AU because it’s mostly character driven. I keep all AUs for later fic fodder, so maybe something more action-y later in the month?


End file.
